Stuck in a Cold, Intermittently Snowy Rut

I know, I know. I restarted my blog with a single post in December, then vanished off the face of the earth.

We travelled to England for our every-other-year (what do we call that? Is it biannual? Biennial? Answers on a postcard/in the comments pretty please) Christmas holiday, and I decided to leave my blog until we returned – hopefully, with a lovely, full list of things to blog about.

Well, things never seem to go how you want them to, do they. Oh, sure, I’ve got a fantastical long list of blog subjects (which I will post in the upcoming weeks, I assure you), but I haven’t been able to sit on my sofa and talk about them, just yet. Why, you may ask?

Well, because we’re still stuck here. Without going into too much detail, we’re playing a waiting game with South African home affairs, and we can’t go home just yet. We don’t even know when we will be able to – nobody can tell us.

My mother in law (retired primary school teacher) is homeschooling Stevie. We are trying to keep them outside, playing, for the rest of the day, but it’s very difficult. They constantly want to return home, as do we. We miss our dogs! Stevie asks at least once a day, when she can go to big school (she’s supposed to have started Crawford 3 weeks ago).

This is not a post to moan or complain – just an information post, for those who may have assumed I’d vanished. We’re still here; we’re still just about hanging on. Our sanity is just about still intact. But, my word, I have never known homesickness like this!

The Great Christmas Tree Debate

Today is the 27th November. I know this, because that means, in 3 days’ time, it will officially be DECEMBER.

Obviously December is exciting for us, this year, for more than one reason. And my poor little unborn child is, unfortunately, going to have to live with sharing his/her birthday with Christmas for the rest of his/her life. But, that won’t stop the rest of the family getting excited.

And, yesterday, I caved. I gave in, I succumbed – I let the two over-excitable buggers put up the Christmas tree. A whole month before Christmas. It’s a travesty.

When I was a kid, the rules were that we got my sister’s birthday out of the way (12th December) and then, only then, could we put up the Christmas tree. Which is understandable – and we’ll probably, one day, have to implement a similar rule (unless this baby comes in its 40th week, in which case – sorry for you, kiddo). But the longer time went on, and the older we, the kids, got, the earlier we were allowed to sort the tree. And the tinsel. And the mini decorative trees. And the dangling, icicle lights from the roof (very, very popular in England, I’ll have you know).

So the new rule became the 1st December. And that is a rule I’ve tried to stick by since the ripe old age of 17, when I became a home owner myself. On years when we spent Christmas here in South Africa, my tiny, mini, hot pink and sparkly tree would be our Christmas companion until we flew. I had a couple of real ones, but when Pete and I moved in together, we spent one Christmas with his family in Leeds and went all out. But never, and I mean NEVER, before the 1st December.

This was our amazing, real Christmas tree one year in London.

Cue motherhood. Cue Stevie’s school already hanging all their decorations. Elf on the Shelf started 2 and a half weeks ago. Every shop we go into, she sees “Christmas ‘dations” as soon as we walk in the door. She’s been opening the decoration drawer since Hallowe’en. And yesterday morning, when I woke up, something came over me. And I decided that we could do the Christmas tree.

We popped on Now That’s What I Call Christmas (note to anyone – this edition is the worst Christmas album, ever), painstakingly built the rather enormous, fake tree, and that was that. We’re seriously lacking enough Christmas lights for my liking, and we could do with some more baubles, but all of a sudden, my house looks so festive. And I like it! It twinkled away in the corner while we watched telly after Stevie’s bedtime, and she got so excited to see it again this morning.

I really wanted to watch Love, Actually last night, but our Blu-Ray player decided to break 3 days ago. Now on to that problem…